Manmohan to address US CongressCongressman Dennis J. Hastert, Speaker of the House of Representatives, has extended a formal invitation to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to address a joint session of the US Congress on July 19.
It is the Speaker of the House, along with the Majority Leader of the
Senate, who has the authority to call a joint session.

US Capitol, White House evacuated
Washington, June 30
President George W. Bush was hurried from his residence to a safer location and people were evacuated from the White House and US Capitol when a private plane ventured into restricted airspace.

Bush gives duty-free access to Indian goods
Washington, June 30
Citing progress on intellectual property and worker rights, President George W. Bush has restored duty-free access for some Indian and Pakistani exports to the USA.

Pak rape victim to address
meet over phone
Islamabad, June 30
A gangrape victim, who was earlier barred by the Pakistan government from travelling to the US to speak about her ordeal at a women’s conference, will now address the meet over telephone on July 2.

Chandigarh man is ‘Green Oscar’ winner
London, June 30
Three Indians have won the 2005 Ashden Awards, considered the “Green Oscar”, for their outstanding and innovative projects.
Hyderabad-based Dharmappa Barki, Chairman and Managing Director of Noble Energy Solar Technologies Ltd, won the Ashden Light Award and a cash prize of Rs 24 lakh for the Solar lanterns he developed for India’s poor.

Indian singer auctioning future earnings!
London, June 30
London-based Indian singer Shayan has found a unique way of utilising the Internet auction site eBay by auctioning off a portion of his future earnings.
Twenty-seven-year-old Shayan is raising funds to jumpstart his career by selling
shares in himself on the Internet auction site.

Hundreds of protesters call for the resignation of the Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in front of a Catholic Church in Manila on Thursday. Leaders of civil society and business groups who backed Arroyo have demanded an inquiry into the results of last year's election. — Reuters

Congressman Dennis J. Hastert, Speaker of the House of Representatives, has extended a formal invitation to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to address a joint session of the US Congress on July 19.

It is the Speaker of the House, along with the Majority Leader of the Senate, who has the authority to call a joint session. The Republicans hold the majority in the Senate and are led by Senator Bill Frist of Tennessee.

The rare honour is reserved for close US allies.

New York Congressman Gary L. Ackerman, Democratic co-chairman of the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian Americans, described the invitation to Dr Manmohan Singh as “terrific news”.

Earlier this month, Mr Ackerman and Florida Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Republican co-chair of the India Caucus, sent a letter to Mr Hastert urging him to call a joint session during Dr Manmohan Singh’s visit to Washington in July. The visit, which will take place from July 18 to 20 at President George W. Bush’s invitation, will be the first US visit by an Indian Prime Minister in nearly five years. Dr Manmohan Singh will meet Mr Bush at the White House on July 18.

“This address by the Prime Minister will not only signify and recognise the strong US-India relationship but it will further deepen ties between the world's oldest democracy and the world’s largest democracy” said Mr Ackerman.

Mrs Ros-Lehtinen said the invitation to Dr Manmohan Singh to address a joint session of Congress would go “a step further in cementing the already warm and productive relationship between India and the US.”

“Our democracies are strong and vibrant and examples for peoples in all corners of the globe that suffer under dictatorships. The Prime Minister’s address to the joint session of Congress tells the world once again that the US is a great friend of India and that our ties will only strengthen with time,” she said.

Fifty-three
Democrats and 17 Republicans signed the letter sent to Mr Hastert.

Both Mr Ackerman and Mrs Ros-Lehtinen are senior members of the powerful House International Relations Committee.

In their letter, the US lawmakers said India’s economy “is already the second fastest-growing in the world and is being the world’s fourth largest in terms of purchasing-power parity.”

The lawmakers noted India’s strategic significance to the US and added the role India can play in contributing to US objectives could not be overstated. “In recent years, the relationship between India and the US has made rapid and striking advances in all areas — economic, political, security, defence and science and technology, to name only a few,” they said.

Washington, June 30
The United States has announced that it was freezing the assets of North Korean, Iranian and Syrian entities accused of proliferating weapons of mass destruction (WMDs).

President George W. Bush, who made the announcement yesterday, said his goal was to “combat trafficking of weapons of mass destruction and proliferation-related materials by cutting off funding and other support for proliferation networks,” the White House said in a fact sheet.

The order targeted any “foreign person" who was engaged in the proliferation of the WMDs, attempted the same, or posed a risk of "materially contributing to proliferation of the WMDs or their means of delivery,” it said.

The order which did not mention any specific entities, listed three organisations linked to North Korea, four to Iran and one to Syria.

The North Korean entities named were the Korea Mining Development Trading Corporation, Tanchon Commercial Bank, Korea Ryonbong General Corporation.

The other organisations listed were the Aerospace Industries Organisation, Shahid Hemmat Industrial Group, Shahid Bakeri Industrial Group, the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran and the Scientific Studies and Research Centre.

The order will be implemented by the Treasury Department. Secretary John snow said the “order sends a clear message: if you deal in weapons of mass destruction, you’re not going to use the US financial system to bankroll or facilitate your activities,” he said.

The decision to freeze assets was taken in response to the recommendations of an official commission on the WMDs proliferation set up in 2004.

Bush, who accepted the recommendations of the commission on the WMDs, endorsed the restructuring of the Justice Department and the FBI and the creation of a National Security Service within the FBI, among others.
— PTI

Washington, June 30
President George W. Bush was hurried from his residence to a safer location and people were evacuated from the White House and US Capitol when a private plane ventured into restricted airspace.

The all-clear came within minutes when two fighter jets intercepted the small twin-engine propeller-driven plane yesterday, 13 km north-east of the Capitol. The alert ended before evacuations were complete at the White House.

The White House briefly went to red alert, its highest level, presidential spokesman Scott McClellan said.

Jets scrambled from Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland, intercepted the plane and later escorted the plane to Winchester, Virginia, where it landed without incident.

At the White House, Mr Bush had left the Oval Office for the day and was in the residence when the alert sounded. “The President was temporarily relocated,” McClellan said. Some senior staff also were seen hurrying from the West Wing to the residence area where a bomb shelter is located.

“We started to relocate some staff,” McClellan said. “Officers were prepared to activate the (White House-wide) alert system but we received notification from the jets that were scrambled that the plane had turned away from the White House.”— AP

Washington, June 30
Citing progress on intellectual property and worker rights, President George W. Bush has restored duty-free access for some Indian and Pakistani exports to the USA.

Mr Bush said that after a review of the current situation in India and taking into account the factors set out in Section 502 of the 1974 Act, in particular Section 502(c)(5), he had determined that India had made progress in providing adequate and effective protection of intellectual property rights.

“Accordingly, I have determined to terminate the suspension of India’s duty-free treatment for certain articles under the GSP,” he said yesterday.
— PTI

Islamabad, June 30
A gangrape victim, who was earlier barred by the Pakistan government from travelling to the US to speak about her ordeal at a women’s conference, will now address the meet over telephone on July 2.

Mukhtaran Mai (34), who was gangraped in 2002 on the order of a village council in the Punjab province as a punishment for her brother’s alleged affair with a woman from an influential rival clan, will address the conference of the Asian-American Network Against Abuse of Women.

Shazia Khalid, a doctor whose rape in the Baluchistan province last year, sparked tribal clashes, would address the meet over the phone from London, Dawn reported today.

Two days ago, Pakistan’s Supreme Court quashed the judgement of lower courts acquitting 13 accused in Mai’s rape case and ordered their re-arrest.

Yesterday, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf, clarifying his stand of not permitting Mai to travel to the US, said he planned to organise an international conference of rape victims to work out remedies to deal with their trauma.
— PTI

London, June 30
Three Indians have won the 2005 Ashden Awards, considered the “Green Oscar”, for their outstanding and innovative projects.

Hyderabad-based Dharmappa Barki, Chairman and Managing Director of Noble Energy Solar Technologies Ltd (NEST), won the Ashden Light Award and a cash prize of Rs 24 lakh for the Solar lanterns he developed for India’s poor.

Bangalore-based Harish Hande received the Enterprise Award and an equal cash amount for his village level solar home systems.

Chandigarh-based Ramesh Kumar Nibhoria of Nishant Bio-energy Consultancy, inventor of School cook-stoves running on crop waste, was declared joint winner of the Climate Care Award along with Stuart Conway of Honduras, developer of a fuel-efficient cook-stove. Both of them shared a cash prize of Rs 24 lakh.

Britain’s Secretary of State for International Development Hilary Benn presented the awards at a glittering ceremony at the Royal Geographical Society here last night.

Other recipients of the Awards included Nepal’s Sundar Bajgain (Welfare Award) for developing Biogas cooking fuel for the home.

After receiving the award, an elated Barki told PTI that he would use the award money for creating a widespread awareness of the solar energy system in India.— PTI